Posts Tagged ‘Iraq’

A storage site housing half of Baghdad’s ballot boxes from Iraq’s parliamentary election in May has caught fire, Reuters reported. This came just days after parliament demanded a nationwide recount of votes, drawing calls for the election to be re-run. An Interior Ministry spokesman said...

A political bloc led by populist Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a long-time adversary of the United States who also opposes Iranian influence in Iraq, has won the country’s parliamentary election, the electoral commission said on Saturday, Reuters reported. Sadr himself cannot become prime...

The Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi declared that the war against the Islamic State (IS) is over. Al-Abadi making the announcement at a press conference in Baghdad said Iraqi army has control over the entire Iraqi-Syrian border. The border and surrounding areas were the last...

OPEC oil output has risen this month by 50,000 barrels per day (bpd), a Reuters survey found, as Iraqi exports increased and production edged higher in Libya, one of the producers exempt from a supply-cutting deal. The survey also found no sizeable further gain in output in Nigeria or Libya,...

Iraq plans to take control of the borders of its autonomous Kurdistan region “in coordination” with Iran and Turkey, the Iraqi Defence Ministry said on Friday. The statement did not give more detail or indicate specifically whether Iraqi forces were planning to move toward the external...

Baghdad heaped pressure on Iraq’s Kurds on Wednesday, demanding they cancel their overwhelming vote for independence while parliament urged the Iraqi central government to send troops to take control of vital oil fields held by Kurdish forces. Stepping up efforts to isolate autonomous...

A convoy of Islamic State fighters appears to have turned back after U.S.-led airstrikes thwarted its attempt to reach territory held by the militant group in eastern Syria, the head of U.S.-led forces fighting Islamic State said on Thursday. More than 300 lightly armed IS fighters and about...

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis visited Iraq on Tuesday just days after the start of an offensive to oust Islamic State from the city of Tal Afar, with talks focused on backing Iraqi efforts to stabilize areas recaptured from the militant group. Prior to arriving, Mattis said the fight against...

Five weeks after securing victory in Mosul, Iraqi forces have moved into positions around the city of Tal Afar, their next objective in the U.S.-backed campaign to defeat Islamic State militants, Iraqi military commanders say. A longtime stronghold of hardline Sunni insurgents, Tal Afar, 50...

BBC - Any Islamic State militants left in the Iraqi city of Mosul will die there, the US envoy to the multinational coalition battling the jihadist group says. Brett McGurk said coalition and Iraqi government forces were "committed to not just defeating them in Mosul, but making sure these guys...